


Woods, Witches and Women

by Vault13 (Feuercrux)



Category: Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-06 06:09:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feuercrux/pseuds/Vault13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew that there was no point being subtle with her brother, that achieved nothing. Yet sometimes she wondered just what she had to do to make him actually see her.</p><p>He always knew this his sister was the complicated one, but he hardly ever understood her. He was sure that it couldn't be right, to be so jealous about something he could never have for his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Seemingly Oblivious

**Author's Note:**

  * For [17 pansies (17pansies)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/17pansies/gifts).



He had been ten when he had stopped climbing into the tub of water with her, to scrub away the blood and the mud off of each other. The hot water that any inn keeper would give them, after killing whichever witch that had plagued the village, save them ruining the sheets perhaps.

She never questioned it, merely rolled her eyes at him, informed him of the stupidity of boys, and instead told him that he better enjoy the cold well water as it was going to take a long time to wash the smell of blood off that way, that long the bath water would probably be too cold for him to use too.

He washed in the well, learned to scrub his own back, and got used to coming in pink and shivering. It wasn't long until she started to be bossy in her own way and there were two tubs of water then.

He stopped bathing in the same room as her, when he was fourteen and she was eleven. It wasn't just because of the whispers; it was largely because he couldn't keep his eyes off of her, and worried perhaps she would remove them for him if she caught him looking.

She looked though, he may not have noticed, boys being unobservant creatures by nature, but she looked. He left the room when she bathed these days, she didn't afford him the same courtesy. No she sat in bed, brushing out her hair, changing her bandages and watching her brother grow more and more handsome, letting her eyes linger on what the water shadowed, what she had felt pressed against her in the night many times.

She's thirteen when he refuses to share a bed with her. He's embarrassed by her knowing smile. He's sixteen, a man grown in most places, the girls watch him, and she scares the girls away because he is hers. He may not know it yet, but he is.

A moon later there's a girl in her bed, her brother asleep beside her. She's made a man of him, her rage boils until the crossbow is levelled out at the both of them. She kicks them both out, burns the sheets in spite and packs up her belongings. She heads out to the next village alone. She still thinks it’s her rage that makes her first moons blood appear. Now she is a woman grown too, and already scorned, she decides to give no care to her brother’s dalliances with village girls, she has more power.

She flirts, she teases, she laces her corsets tighter, fits her leathers closer. Blacksmiths boys, armourers sons, midwives daughters, she teases and touches them all, they never come back to her rooms. That she won't allow. Instead she lets them suck red marks onto her throat, on a visible curve of a breast, lets their hands push into her leather pants and touch her until she can think of nothing but how it feels.

She goes back to their rooms, rumpled, pink cheeked and she watches him look, hears his teeth grind, and tells him in a hard, unwavering look, that it was him that started this, him that pushed away from her first.   
Subtlety had never been his sister’s art. She was a, head butt first deal with the consequences later kind of gal, heck they both were to some extent. He knew she was strong, tough and had a cruel streak an acre wide, her hatred fuelled it well, but he hadn’t ever been on the receiving end of it before. He hadn’t realised just how beautifully devastating she could be when she chose to be.

It didn't affect their work he realised quickly, she still had his back, and he, hers. That was it though. She saw to her own wounds and only looked after the ones he couldn't reach. Her gentle touch he missed, and the one time he had questioned it, "I'm sure I saw a half dozen girls who would be happy to help" had been her only curt response.

It didn't appear to stop her breaking the rules though. Another thing that they didn't talk about. It was his bath, his hot water that he had been desperately wanting of. He's climbed the stairs with a bleeding side, stepped into their rooms thinking she was in the stables still, only to walk in to the sight of her bent over, tugging away her leather trousers to show the thin underwear beneath them.

She had grown. He always knew this but perhaps ignored it. She was skinny for a girl, always active, always on the hunt. Long legs, curved hips, firm ass... She stepped out of her underwear, the flick of her blouse letting him glimpse a bare behind for just a moment before hiding it from view.

He scuffed his boot as he shifted, the fact he didn't find himself with a cross bow bolt aimed at him told him she knew he was there. She stepped into the water, legs bruised and tugged the shirt up and over her head in one move tossing it aside, and still he didn't make a move out towards the door. She was hurt and bloody, bruises covering pale skin but still beautiful.

He could see her slender waist, smaller for the clothes she wore, but it had been years since he had seen her this way, she was nineteen now, not the flat cheated girl that would steal his shirts and pants.

She glanced over her shoulder at him as she unbranded her hair and sank into the bath, not before affording him a glimpse of peach coloured nipples, and a curve of a breast bearing a new red mark on it.

"I'm stealing your water, I'm not apologising" she sank into the water completely until bruised knees was all you could see as she submerged herself in the copper tub. The waters surface was milky with ointments to help healing, but not cloudy enough to hide her completely from view.

He ached, sat in the bar he shifted uncomfortably as the ale did nothing to dampen his spirits. He told himself it was a sin, one that couldn't be forgiven to even think what he was thinking was probably enough to earn him a special place in hell.

His bow was always strung tighter after a kill he knew that, after all wasn't it what men thrived on? He true hunters. It hadn't occurred to him that she may feel the same. She was his sister, the one who he could look after and soothe her hurts and protect her. She wasn't a woman with wants and needs.

He saw her then, dressed in a loose blouse, a clincher around her waist and pants and boots. Slipping out into the dark alone, he wondered just where she was off to. He had another, and another, then gave in to his curiosity.

Even drunk he could follow her tracks, she hadn't tried to hide them, and this village knew them well, the worn street was little more than mud after all the rain they had, and he soon found himself at the door.

Fucking hell... A blacksmith.

It seemed his sister had a taste for strong arms and broad shoulders. Moving around to the open back of the smith, he saw her, he saw them. She lay back on a work bench, the glow off of the fire illuminating her in a rosy hue, just out of sight of anyone passing who wasn't looking for her.

Blouse open to the waist, breeches god only knew where. He couldn't decide where to look first, her face, having never seen it look so ecstatic before, her chest, bare breasts firm and full as her fingers touched at one, or there between her thighs, positively feasting upon her, the wet sounds he made audible over the crackle of the fire as he watched her free hand catch nails into the skin of his shoulder dragging him closer.

He'd later convince himself it was drunken stupidity that made him march in there; he'd never admit it was jealousy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the reviews! It means a lot :)
> 
> And sorry for the delay with this chapter.

Three days later, his jaw still hurt. Her right cross had more power behind it than he would have ever thought that it would, and he could still see the lights behind his eyes every time he clenched his jaw when he tried to chew. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to have taught her to fight with her fists, but then again he hadn’t ever really thought that she would be his target, perhaps though he could be forgiven for having not quite predicted this situation.

Eating however was dull as a result, soup, he had a lot of soup in his future, and a sister that wouldn't even acknowledge that he was in the same room as her, let alone the fact that he was breathing. He had tried, once to broach the subject and she had just lifted wide eyes to look at him and he had known perhaps that in that look alone that there wasn’t about to be and forgiveness there, not yet at least.

He had been sleeping on the floor a lot, a lot of alcohol to numb the pain and he knew he couldn't fall off of the floor at least after he had been in the brown ale a lot, and allowing himself the quiet night when he could lie there and remember what he had seen. When morning came though, caught between the hangover and the guilt again he told himself that he’d not think of her that way anymore, but by the end of the night it was only her he wanted no matter what women batted lashes his way. 

When he thought about it clear headed though he realised that she hadn't been as furious as he had thought she might have been. It was, he supposed more the indignant behaviour at that he had both interrupted her, spied on her and had also stolen that perfect moment of orgasm from her. Still, he had to admire any woman who could be on her feet and knocking someone flat on their back, dressed in an open shirt and little else and not seem to pause for even a moment. Even as he had lay on his back staring up at her and the furious look on her face he couldn't help but look. 

Looking he realised now, had been the issue here. If he hadn’t have looked, if he had been strong enough to cast his eyes aside and sober enough to realise it was the better option then he’d not have the beautiful torture going on in his head that he had right now. Just knowing what was hidden beneath those clothes and beneath the water as she bathed tormented him now in ways that he was certain wouldn’t ever end.

Pale thighs hidden from the sun, pale blue veins in strong legs and then that thatch of short dark curls well, she had snapped her shirt shut but he could see that flash in her eyes, behind the fury, behind the somewhat forced disgust, there was a little look that told you she had won, that he had stepped into her trap and hadn't even seen it coming. She had wanted him to show his cards, and now he had in a way that he'd never be able to deny he had. He hadn’t been clear enough to realise this was a game then, and now in the sober light of day, he wasn’t sure that it was a game he’d risk playing, when he wasn’t too sure on the rules.

It didn't mean though that he wasn't going to blame it on the alcohol if he could. It was a poor excuse and one that he knew she was more than able to see straight through but it didn't mean that he wouldn't try his hardest to regain some shred of dignity about all of this. To try and tell himself that he was doing the right and adult thing in not entering into all of this. Forget the best defence being a good offence. This time the best defence was a distraction, the biggest and best one he could find, and this particular village seemed to be full of them, fiery read heads and buxom brunettes and beer.

Her brother was an idiot, Gretel had always known that she was the stronger of the two, it helped though that he looked as he did and wouldn't go into anything without her at least then she was allowed to listen to the conversation that men didn't seem to deem her worthy of listening to. Difference was she actually listened to all the conversation, instead of hearing what they wanted to hear as men were so known to do. Thing was she also heard what wasn't said, how her brother wouldn't talk to her about plans and would spend his time with whatever red haired village girl that caught his eye that night.

That was until said village girl died, his hands bloody, his sides bloody, and he was in her rooms that night, hurting, aching and heart broken. She hadn't thought for a moment that he would be the sort to actually fall for one of these girls, now though she wondered if she had pushed him too hard or if he didn't want her anymore, that perhaps he was actually honestly revolted by her in one way or another. 

When they had hit this particular village she hadn’t spoken much to him on the way aside from what they knew about the area, why they had been called and what they were expecting. She had been waspish with him she knew that but she would have defended it was her moons blood to start with, then once they were in the village she realised it was the women there, these ones looked at her differently and it was in a way that she didn’t like, almost as if they knew something about her that she didn’t.

In her rooms she was often alone of the evenings, leaving her brother in the bar she looked at the files of the missing children and heard him laugh from the room beneath her and realised that night it had been a long time since she had heard him laugh that way. He sounded good that way, warm and rich and charming all the things about him that she loved and now someone else was learning to love that side of him. She should have known it would be like this, her brother wasn’t good at games.

Now though, after all was said and done she would look after him. "You want me to call for a bath for you?" She offered after helping him out of his jacket and completely ruined shirt, there wasn't anything that would need stitches but he needed hot water and soap to take that blood and mud off of his skin. When he didn't answer she shook her head and instead went out to call it for him. A tub of water big enough for two as three chamber maids filled it with water hot from the fire and still Hansel picked at his food ignored his beer and even as Gretel unwrapped her own bandages and checked that she didn't have any hurts that couldn't wait till later.

"Hansel, bathe, you need to get that witch blood off of you and you need to let me see if you need a doctor..." She would thank him for the rescue when she wasn't scared that he was closing in on himself. A deep dark part of her worried that now they knew what she really was, that this on top of everything else would make him withdraw from her forever. 

She was pulling off her boots though when she heard him move, she thought to keep her eyes down not let him feel too watched before she regained her bossy title and made sure he was okay. The smell of blood hit her first as she picked her head up in time to see a flash of serious eyes and a damp hand smeared blood across her cheek as he jerked her forward for a kiss, a bump of teeth the scratch of stubble against her sore split lower lip as he crushed her to him, all her hurts mixed with his in that moment, and she wondered for a moment just where this had snuck up on her from. 

She had perhaps thought that for a long time he may not have wanted anyone but the one he had lost, she hadn’t thought that a part of him might want what was always there, what hadn’t ever left him and had always fought to stay at his side too. It wouldn’t have occurred to her in all the years with him, that perhaps he had finally learned to play a game of his own. 

She was here, gods she was here and she was real and warm and moving in his arms. He had watched those lips scold him, swear at him, shout to him in the moments when she had needed him the most, called out to save his life and now could utter magic. That was the newest though, to know that behind those lips actually lived power over more than just him.

He had thought that Mina would be a fling, something to make Gretel jealous, to make her come to him instead of him always following her. He should have known that his sister would always have been too stubborn a creature to fall for something as simple as that, as it was he had found that not having her only made him want her more. 

Feeling her lips under his though, the metallic tang of blood across his tongue, the smell of sweat and dirt and leather hit him, but then he heard for a moment that slight little sounds she gave as he felt her arms come round his neck, his shoulder screamed out in pain, and she whimpered slightly as his arms closed round her squeezing when perhaps he shouldn’t have, but right now he couldn’t let her go, he didn’t dare.


	3. Chapter 3

Taking a breath against those lips, she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. It had been something she had wanted for so long, for those eyes to look only to her and for those lips to kiss no other lips than her own. Now that she had it she felt as if she had been set alight. If she had had any part of her left that had been uncertain about what she felt and what she knew she had needed since she was a child, then it was extinguished as she felt him pull her closer. 

They stank, covered in blood of all kinds, mud and leaves and surrounded by a tinge of sorrow that she hoped with all of her heart hadn’t been the case of his need for her. This, she needed to be him wanting her and realising that this was the missing piece had always been in his life. Her ribs screamed through her side as she tumbled them back into his lap and straddled his hips and bumped noses as she kissed him.

He laughed; the sound such a clear roguish tone into the air between them made her smile and went such a long way to calming the nerves that she hadn’t thought would be an issue when it came to Hansel of all people. Still a smile of her own and she took a breath, taking a kiss before she knew that they had to move that they had to bathe and that it was going to be a level of disgusting that even she couldn’t deal with. 

She rocked back on her heels, finding her feet and regretfully tearing her lips from his and instead, dipped a hand into the water and flicked it just lightly at him. “Bathe, for there are no two creatures quite as disgusting as we are right now” A smile and a twist of her lips and she found that her pain could be ignored for a moment as she undid her clothes and pulled tails from breeches and was pulling the ruined shirt over her head when she felt hands at her waist, rough and worn as her own as he helped her pull it free. 

He had glanced this skin more often than not in stolen moments and ill fated interventions and as he touched it now he looked at her, bruised and scratched ribs, blackening already into ugly swirls on her skin but as he covered it with his hands he could think of it for only a moment as if they weren’t there, and perhaps never would be again if she had magic at her disposal.

“I can hear you thinking it and the truth is you know as much of what I can and can’t do as I do right now. Bruises are bruises, I’ve healed them myself I can do so again and again if needs be. “He didn’t speak; he had no voice even if he had wanted to. He had caught sight of them in the age spotted mirror across the room and the sight of her stood there, bare to the waist, her back towards his chest and the way her hair was falling from the pins to just obscure patches of her from view.

His mouth was dry and god as he saw her catch his eye in the mirror and move a bandaged hand up to press against a breast that he had been staring somewhat intently at. Her eyes closed as he touched, tentative at first before he found himself holding her close and touching without pause as he kissed at her neck. They were filthy, sweaty and tired and yet it seemed almost right that it should be this way for them, after all this was their life together now wasn’t it. 

Hands scrabbled almost to get her pants down and away, the gymnastic side of her pulled out of them and twisted in his arms to work at the thick leather belts that looped his waist more than once, kisses moving from soft and deep to short and biting as she pulled and pulled before the snick of it coming free only made her smile into the kiss as Hansel leaned down to her not wanting to let her lips free for even a moment.

A bare foot found the lip of the copper tub and she used it to drag him into the water with her. Where as her brother may deem it acceptable to be together, covered in blood and sweat and grime, Gretel wanted the surface layers gone at least, she needed to be able to see him, feel him and god, wrap herself in that smell that she had always known since she was a child, that meant that she was safe. 

The tub was big but not made for two so to perch over him left her in his lap, the hot cloth in her hand making short gentle work as she cleaned his face between kisses, the sharp rise of his brow, a cut split his eyebrow as she cleaned it she felt distracted hands at her hips, her thighs, the small of her back, touching everywhere but where it seemed that he wanted to touch. Her brave brother, his want for her obvious every time she settled against him to rinse the cloth and yet, he didn’t move, didn’t leap in with both feet as he was so prone to doing so.

“You’re playing the blushing maid” She teased and watched those eyes flash in the darkness to look at her a moment, a scruff of three day beard under her palm and she could see the knot in his brow thinking about it all the more. Running the cloth in soft slow stripes down his chest she could see, in his own brooding way he was chewing over his words just so. 

Fine, if he was in need of a little encouragement, well she had the upper hand already. Settled against strong thighs she took her attention from him and instead, used one strong arm to grip the bath and the other to lean back and drop herself into the water soaking away the filth and the grime and well, if it meant that he got to take a good long look of her in the low light of flickering oil lamps well, she would take it as the chance to encourage him in any way she saw fit.

She was trying to kill him. 

That was all he could keep thinking, no matter what it was that he did, how much of a gentleman he tried to be, even knowing that she was putting all this out there for him in temptation, he was still waiting for the other boot to drop. Caution with his sister was always a well advised state for life, let alone when it had all come in riding on a wave of want and emotion like this. He had no idea what was the right answer. He wanted her, there was no way that he could deny that, but in the same breath this was the final moment they had left before nothing would ever be the same again.

He had had fever dreams much like this before, he had been pinching himself under the cover of the water just to check that this wasn’t something sent to try him, a test, maybe even a warning. A soft sound escaped him though as he looked over at her, soaking herself back in the bath and her body, seemed to be all valleys and peaks from here, that little birthmark against her thigh, that scar from the witches arrows that should have torn her belly out and yet, hadn’t.

This was his sister in all her glory. Naked and warm and she wanted him. It wasn’t a secret he had always known but always refused it. After all they were… siblings. This couldn’t be, but really the more he considered it, what were they? Girls half her age were married with broods of children, men half his age were husbands and fathers. Neither of them would look so far for anything like that and he knew, he knew his sister got what she wanted no matter how long she had to wait to get it. 

Why fight it now, could they be any more unnatural than they already were, children of a witch, hunting witches together their whole lives, they only had each other, and it was all either of them wanted so why should he stop this? Why should he…

Her eyes flew open and hands grasped the sides as she felt him move. The same unpredictable speed that she had always been envious of, he never usually let it show, but this was a point when all she could do was be the one to hold on to him as he swept them from the bath, onto the threadbare rug by the fire and he was inside her before she could so much as take a breath. The only sound she could give was the low surprised moan that slipped from her lips as broken nails caught at the strong muscle in his back and shoulders as thighs hugged against his hips as she rose to meet each movement.

A whimper of a sound and she pressed as much bare skin against his own as she could fingers scrabbling uneven paths into dark hair to pull him down for kiss after kiss making sure he knew that it was her beneath him, giving him no chance to picture anyone else as she rolled his name, her ragged accent breathless as she watched those eyes bore into her and felt foolish for a moment, foolish for ever thinking that he didn’t already know that this would happen someday. He had known perhaps even before she had, and he had tried to be noble, tried in all his ways to look after her, but like this, they hadn’t ever been more complete. Like this, they would be unstoppable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, huge apologies! I was cleaning a backup hard drive and I found this. I thought I had posted it forever and a day ago and erm, It appears that I hadn't. This is the last part, but re-reading there may be a touch of an epilogue. Not sure yet. Anyway, so sorry to keep you waiting (if indeed anyone was!)


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